"Strange Foods”

In the essay “Critical Visions: The Representations and Resistance of Asian Women” by Lynn Lu in our Dragon Ladies book, food from different ethnicities is related to the cultural and sexual differences of Asian women. Lynn uses bell hook’s essay to state that Asian cultures, or that of other ethnicities, are like spices; they act as “seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture”. I thought that Lynn’s comment about how using food for attention can backfire where, instead of challenging stereotypes and providing new perspectives, different cultures and thus people are seen as “objects to be consumed” was simple, yet insightful. Even though this idea seems quite obvious, I found myself beginning to remember and further understand some conversations I have had in high school and with friends today.

I grew up mainly in Henderson, a suburb of Las Vegas, which was an area largely made up of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics. My middle school and high school had roughly the same racial demographics, and as a result, whenever my classmates and I discussed foods we liked, I received many looks of disgust and/or surprise whenever I mentioned foods such as fish. Before my junior and senior year in high school, I knew very few people who ate fish; it was as if it was some sort of foreign food that only the brave or insane ate. Chinese food meant Panda Express, Indian food was invisible, and quite obviously, if no one ate cooked fish, the thought of raw fish in some types of sushi was disbelief. Most people hadn’t even heard of sushi, either with or without the raw fish.

Once junior/senior year in high school rolled around though, almost everyone in my classes could attest to having tried or liking Japanese food, by which I, and they, mean sushi. Going out to eat sushi had become the new, “in” thing to do on those Friday’s after school was out or weekend hang outs. Although I was quite slow on the uptake, I eventually realized that those I had spoken to years prior about foods I liked were finally eating some of said foods, but only because it had become socially acceptable to do so.

As I began to become aware of what was going on around me, I also began to observe a larger quantity of high-end restaurants at the Las Vegas Strip as places serving “Asian” foods. But, because these were supposed to be high-end, pricy restaurants, fusion foods became more and more popular with the simultaneous rise in Asian dishes. Waitresses and waiters increasingly could be assumed to be of an Asian background and the décor began taking on a more “Asian” feel, with pillowed seats, bamboo, waterfalls/wells, and red colored things. Granted, Las Vegas caters to many tourists, especially those from China, so perhaps the casinos and hotels were trying to draw in more customers in that regard, but I believe that these restaurants exemplify the quote above regarding cultures becoming a “seasoning”. Las Vegas is literally a place where people go to consume entertainment and different experiences that they would not otherwise be able to take part in. Yes, because some of the now offered foods are “new” and “exotic”, a larger group of people are drawn to and given the chance to understand that Asian food is indeed delicious. But because of the vacation and food fusion setting, the people, culture, and meals are twisted into objects that merely add excitement, and not thought, to the average mundane daily life.